Here is a short video from an EcoLog 560E machine demo in spruce thinning. It’s a 560E harvester with a LogMax 4000T head and a 574E forwarder doing the job. The site is a 45+ year old spruce on good soil in southern Sweden and this is the last thinning of this stand. The production of the harvester in this kind of forest is amazingly good with a high feeding speed of the harvester head and a good size of the trunks.
The Ecolog 560E harvester operate in the striproads that where cut in the first thinning and there is also space for the forwarder to haul the logs in those striproads. In this second thinning, the machine only cut trees in between the striproads as a selective thinning.
In this logging it’s cut both sawlogs and pulpwood. Sometimes harvesters also cut short chip’n-saw logs if there are any demand for such wood. Modern harvesters use a color mark system which mark each log with a one-two colour identification if necessary.
There are some technical specifications of the EcoLog 560E harvester and the 574E forwarder in this video but you can get more information at EcoLogs website.
We have made several features and videos here at nordicwoodjournal.com about thinning with CTL-harvesters and here is some more to find:
Komatsu 901 XC in first thinning
Low impact logging with Rottne H8 harvester
Here is a video and some more pictures of the EcoLog 560E harvester and the EcoLog 574E forwarder:
